Electric Control Substituting Pitch Control for Large Wind Turbines

Abstract

A completely electrical control of a variable speed wind turbine is experimentally verified. A vertical axis wind turbine with a direct driven generator and an electrical system with diode rectification and full inverter connected to the electric grid is presented. This is the first paper that presents this novel 200 kW wind power plant erected at the west coast of Sweden. The turbine has fixed pitch and is only controlled electrically accommodated by passive stall of the blades. By electrically controlling the generator rotational speed with the inverter, passive stall regulation is enabled. The first results on experimental verification of stall regulation in gusty wind speeds are presented. The experiments show that the control system can keep the turbine rotational speed constant even at very gusty winds. It is concluded that electrical control accommodated by passive stall is sufficient as control of the wind turbine even at high wind speeds and can substitute mechanical control such as blade pitch.